house

The incoming chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee says WikiLeaks should be officially designated as a terrorist organization.

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), the panel's presumptive next head, asked the Obama administration today to "determine whether WikiLeaks could be designated a foreign terrorist organization," putting the group in the same company as al-Qaeda and Aum Shinrikyo, the Japanese cult that released deadly sarin gas on the Tokyo subway.

"WikiLeaks appears to meet the legal criteria" of a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, King wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reviewed … Read more

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ordered clandestine surveillance of United Nations leadership, including obtaining "security measures, passwords, personal encryption keys, and types of VPN versions used" and biometric information, according to a secret directive made public today by WikiLeaks.org.

The July 2009 directive issued under Clinton's name, which also asks for details about "information systems, networks, and technologies used by top officials and their support staffs," sheds rare light on the shadowy world of government espionage.

That classified dispatch is part of a massive document dump, about 250,000 diplomatic cables, that began appearing … Read more

NASA and the White House are tops at using social media and the Web compared with a wide range of other public sector groups in the U.S., according to a study out today from the George Washington University School of Business and digital think tank L2.

Authored by George Washington University School of Business dean Doug Guthrie, New York University professor and L2 founder Scott Galloway, and experts from L2, the first annual Digital IQ Index for the Public Sector (PDF) measured the effectiveness of Web sites, digital marketing, social media, and mobile platform support among 100 different public … Read more

In a sign that the new airport screening procedures may be altered, two key politicians told the Transportation Security Administration today that the rules may be unconstitutional and a waste of government resources.

"We are concerned about the new enhanced pat-down screening protocols and urge you to reconsider the utilization of these protocols," Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the influential chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, and Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.), chairman of a transportation subcommittee, told the TSA in a letter (PDF). They asked TSA to turn over internal documents, studies, and traveler complaints by December 1. … Read more

The Obama administration wants better Internet privacy protection and is looking for new laws and a new government office to help in that effort, according to an article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal.

Citing people familiar with the situation, the Journal says the White House had asked the Commerce Department to create a report with recommendations on enacting new laws concerning Internet privacy. Currently in draft form, the final report is due to come out in a few weeks.

A special task force headed by Cameron Kerry, brother of Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, has also been formed to help … Read more

A University of California at San Francisco professor of biochemistry told CNET today that the Obama administration's claim that full-body scanners pose no health risks to air travelers is in "error."

The administration's defense of the controversial machines, which use X-rays to perform what critics have dubbed naked strip searches, has "many misconceptions, and we will write a careful answer pointing out their errors," said John Sedat, a UCSF professor of biochemistry and biophysics and member of the National Academy of Sciences.

"Because four people are working on this, it will not be … Read more

GRATON, Calif.--As most people know, a major reason for the current housing meltdown was millions of people buying homes far bigger than they needed, let alone could afford. To Jay Shafer, the answer is tiny.

Shafer is the creator of Tumbleweed Tiny Houses, a company based in this, yes, tiny town about an hour north of San Francisco, that designs and sells very, very small homes.

How small? Tiny Houses' most petite model, the XS-House, is just 65 square feet. Yet, while you might expect to find little more than a rabbit warren inside, what you actually experience when … Read more

Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina, two ex-Silicon Valley executives who pledged to use their business acumen to fix California's many economic woes, today fell short in their bids to overcome their Democratic rivals.

Despite widespread anti-incumbent sentiment and a California unemployment rate hovering around 12 percent to 13 percent, Whitman and Fiorina failed to overcome their Democratic adversaries: onetime Gov. Jerry Brown, who sought to reclaim his old job, and incumbent Sen. Barbara Boxer, who has been in the U.S. Congress for approximately 28 years.

California polls closed at 8 p.m. PT. But it can take a … Read more

If the U.S. were hit by a severe cyberattack, would you want the president to be able to control or even shut down portions of the Internet?

A majority 61 percent of Americans polled by Unisys for a new security study believes the president should have the power to control or effectively "kill" portions of the Internet if key U.S. systems (military, financial, electrical) were hit by a malicious cyberattack from a foreign government.

These findings from the latest biannual Unisys Security Index suggest that the public may support a pending cybersecurity bill that would give … Read more